Not a cooking knife, but cooking a knife?

[t1mpani]

I recently picked up an old Edge Brand bowie that is in good shape (in terms of little or no use, no surface rust, etc.) but needs some general lovin' to bring it up to speed.

First up is the old stag scales have warped a tiny bit--still very solid but have left a noticeable gap at the mortise top and bottom. Also, the design of the guard is nice and robust, but up front it's a square cut notch that doesn't taper to follow the plunge of the blade grind, so there is--again--a large gap where moisture, dirt, animal fats/blood, etc. could get in to the tang. So, a couple of epoxy fills are in order.

My question is, would it be worth putting the whole knife into an oven at right around 215 deg. F for an hour or two to try and remove any moisture that might already have collected inside the handle? Am I just asking for even more warped pieces of stag?

I thought of just immersing the whole handle in a cup of mineral oil to displace moisture from the tang and also treat the stag, but am worried about how well my epoxy fill would adhere on the stag when I can't really get into either gap to get the oil off the gluing surfaces.

Any ideas would be most welcome, even if framed in a "just do the epoxy fills and stop making this so damned complicated" sort of way.

Warren

 

[bikermikearchery]

I have had bad luck at using the oven to dry out natural material. Always seams to warp even if it has been dry for years.
I would rinse in alcohol, Blow it out with compressed air then let it dry over night. That should be clean enough for the epoxy to form a good bond
Best would be to remove the scales completely and reset them.

 

[t1mpani]

Thanks much--I am very much liking your idea and that may be the direction I'll go. The other thing that had occurred to me was that I could do my epoxy fill at the mortise joints first, then submerge the handle in mineral oil (which would let oil into the tang through the guard) to displace moisture, turn it upside down to dry out, and then clean the oil out of the blade/guard juncture with mineral spirits and do my fill there. I'd think the remaining mineral oil residue inside would just absorb into the stag. Hmmm---will ponder.

Many thanks, further warping was my concern, so nice to know before I tried it.

And you're right--I'd like to reset it, but there are four pins also securing the handle, and what looks like a glue joint between the stag and guard/pommel. Afraid I'd bust the scales trying to get them off.